About Us

Our History

The Port of Harlingen was created in 1926 as a vision to bring in waterborne commerce to evolve the Rio Grande Valley into a major economic player in economic growth, The Port of Harlingen has grown into an important hub to the south west Texas region and internationally.

Organized as a navigation district, officially known then as the Arroyo Colorado Navigation District of Cameron and Willacy Counties (ACND), the Port was created under the Texas Constitution Water Code, Chapter 62, Section 59. Although established in name and concept, the Port was not operational until 1952. Years of strategic planning, effort and river construction and maintenance created the thriving Port it is today. As it stood in the 1920s, the Arroyo Colorado, an offshoot of the Rio Grande River, was not a navigable waterway. Although it emptied into the lower Laguna Madre near the lower Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico. However, city and and county leaders determined that if it were made navigable, the area would benefit greatly from a water highway connecting Harlingen to other major ports along the Gulf of Mexico and the United States.

From 1926 to 1941, Port commissioners worked with local banks, and state and federal organizations to finance, plan and execute the organization, permitting and dredging of the Arroyo Colorado for navigation. The ACND held its first bond sale of $500,000 in 1927 to set financially the wheels of progress in motion.

It was not until 1938 the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers approved a continuous channel from Harlingen to the Laguna Madre via the Arroyo Colorado. Over the next nine years, 1942 to 1951, construction of The Port commenced, which included dredging the river to appropriate depths and widths for the transportation of goods via barges, rerouting the river for ease of tug movement, creating a turning basin and connecting the Arroyo Colorado with the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW). Work toward the Port also included a bond issue election in April 1946 of $625,000 to cover a period of 25 years for facilities, right-of-way and disposal property, which passed by a 4 to 1 margin. A tax levy was also set in 1947 at $0.06/$100 for operations and maintenance, which stayed in effect until 1951.

By 1951, the dredging of the Arroyo Colorado connecting the intracoastal waterway at the wye was finished, leaving only the Port’s turning basin to be completed. This was accomplished by 1952 and the Port in Harlingen was officially open for business on Feb. 28, 1952. The first cargo scheduled to be discharged was 2,728 tons of steel pipe on five barges cosigned to Continental Oil Co. Growth in land acquisition and vessels utilizing the port grew through the 1960s and 1970s leading to the expansion of capital improvement projects, which included re-building roads, new access roads, warehouse construction, drainage and new docks.

In 1980, the Port finished construction of the administrative offices, where it currently stands today. In 1981, commissioners submitted a bill to their state representative to change the name of the “Arroyo Colorado Navigation District” to “The Port of Harlingen Authority,” which it had been referred to by state and local departments as for years. In May 1983, the Port officially became “The Port of Harlingen.” It was also in the 1980s that the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Mill would begin shipping a portion of their raw sugar through the Port, which was an initial estimate of 25,000 tons a year. Today, the Port exports an average of 30 shipments a year totaling about 150,000 tons.

From the 1980s to through today, the Port of Harlingen has seen unprecedented growth growing to several key tenants that conduct multimodal activity daily on-site. Commodities now include liquid fertilizer, sand aggregates, gasoline, diesel, ethanol, raw sugar, cotton, sorghum and corn.